"You can't get them to look at plantations down there. They've been taken in too often. But I do hate to give the place up--more for Hughie's sake, I swear, than my own. He was bound up in it. You see, he was a persistent chap, and hated to acknowledge defeat. It--it makes me uncomfortable to think of it myself. We were running slowly behind, but with the _Jessie_ we hoped to muddle through in some fashion." "You were muddlers, the pair of you, without doubt. But you needn't sell to Morgan and Raff. I shall go down to Sydney on the next steamer, and I'll come back in a second-hand schooner. I should be able to buy one for five or six thousand dollars--" He held up his hand in protest, but she waved it aside. "I may manage to freight a cargo back as well. At any rate, the schooner will take over the _Jessie's_ business. You can make your arrangements accordingly, and have plenty of work for her when I get back. I'm going to become a partner in Berande to the extent of my bag of sovereigns--I've got over fifteen hundred of them, you know. We'll draw up an agreement right now--that is, with your permission, and I know you won't refuse it." He looked at her with good-natured amusement. "You know I sailed here all the way from Tahiti in order to become a planter," she insisted. "You know what my plans were. Now I've changed them, that's all. I'd rather be a part owner of Berande and get my returns in three years, than break ground on Pari-Sulay and wait seven years." "And this--er--this schooner. . . . " Sheldon changed his mind and stopped. "Yes, go on." "You won't be angry?" he queried. "No, no; this is business. Go on." "You--er--you would run her yourself?--be the captain, in short?--and go recruiting on Malaita?" "Certainly. We would save the cost of a skipper. Under an agreement you would be credited with a manager's salary, and I with a captain's. It's quite simple. Besides, if you won't let me be your partner, I shall buy Pari-Sulay, get a much smaller vessel, and run her myself. So what is the difference?" "The difference?--why, all the difference in the world. In the case of Pari-Sulay you would be on an independent venture. You could turn cannibal for all I could interfere in the matter. But on Berande, you would be my partner, and then I would be responsible. And of course I couldn't permit you, as my partner, to be skipper of a recruiter. I tell you, the thing is what I would not permit any sister or wife of mine--" "But I'm not going to be your wife, thank goodness--only your partner." "Besides, it's all ridiculous," he held on steadily. "Think of the situation. A man and a woman, both young, partners on an isolated plantation. Why, the only practical way out would be that I'd have to marry you--" "Mine was a business proposition, not a marriage proposal," she interrupted, coldly angry. "I wonder if somewhere in this world there is one man who could accept me for a comrade."